"Plea" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... And when you are engaged in a siege; and want timber for the making of warlike engines, do not you render the land naked by cutting down trees that bear fruit, but spare them, as considering that they were made for the benefit of men; and that if they could speak, they would have a just plea against you, because, though they are not occasions of the war, they are unjustly treated, and suffer in it, and would, if they were able, remove themselves into another land. When you have beaten your enemies in battle, slay those that have fought against you; but preserve the others alive, ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... animated by a curious bravery. In a nasal, plaintive voice she was singing the words of a ballad of love and of loving that London, as only London can, had made curiously its own that season. The insistence of her plea—for she sang as if she cried out her life's longing, sang as if she called on the passing crowd not for alms, but for understanding—made her for the moment, before she faded back into oblivion, an artist, voicing the heartache and the heartbreak ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... of the church at Russell, and who had led the cry of "traitor" afterwards. He was a brave man, and the son of a bishop; but his excitable mind had been poisoned by the officials of the New Zealand Company, and now that death had interposed its extenuating plea, his offence could be forgiven. The archdeacon was permitted by the victorious Maoris to take the officer's eyeglass, and a lock of hair from his brow, for transmission to his English friends, and might well hope ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... ARAGON, fourth daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, and wife of Henry VIII., her brother-in-law as widow of Arthur, from whom, and at whose instance, after 18 years of married life, and after giving birth to five children, she was divorced on the plea that, as she had been his brother's wife before, it was not lawful for him to have her; after her divorce she remained in the country, led an austere religious life, and died broken-hearted. The refusal ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... pretext for political shabbiness—never did he imagine that to leave a disgraced name as an inheritance to his children was a duty as a father" (Memoirs, vol. i. pp. xiii and xiv), and when Rogers urged this plea of family as a reason why he should accept the money, Moore said, "More mean things have been done in this world under the shelter of 'wife and children' than under any pretext worldly-mindedness can resort to." To which S.R. only said, "Well, your life may be ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... possible to look at European aggressions in, say, Africa as incidents of a colonization movement. But no foreign policy in Asia can shelter itself behind any colonization plea. For continental Asia is, for practical purposes, India and China, representing two of the oldest civilizations of the globe and presenting two of its densest populations. If there is any such thing in truth as a philosophy of history with its own inner and inevitable ...
— China, Japan and the U.S.A. - Present-Day Conditions in the Far East and Their Bearing - on the Washington Conference • John Dewey
... to say—"be so unfortunate [as] to depend on the success of his Labours for his Bread, he must be an inhuman Creature indeed, who would out of sport and wantonness prevent a Man from getting a Livelihood in an honest and inoffensive Way, and make a jest of starving him and his Family." The plea is a good one if the play is good; but if not, it is worthless. In this respect the public are like the French Cardinal in the story; and when the famished writer's work fails to entertain them, they are fully justified ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... leaving the bar, intercepted Laramie. Doubleday and Stone, pretending not to observe, saw Van Horn, on the plea of important talk, succeed, after some demur, in inducing Laramie to return with him to the hotel office. Once there and in a quiet corner with two chairs, Van Horn lost no time in opening his subject: "You know as well as I do, Jim, what shape things are in on the ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... you speak from experience," said Olivia, smiling, but impatient that he should find a single plea in favour of a wretch ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... quotes these words from Jeremy Taylor. And yet ever since the dawn of the Renaissance, had subsisted a conflict between reason and faith. From the first, indeed, the Christian religion had affirmed the existence of such a conflict, and had even based its plea upon its own weakness in it. In face of the classical culture, with its deep wide-struck roots in the world as it permanently exists, St. Paul asserted the claims of that which could not appeal with success to any genuinely human principle. Paradox as it was, that was the strength ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... objected;—he will compare similar incidents,—refer to past examples,—and by way of amplification assign their distinguishing qualities to opposite characters and circumstances;—he will check an impertinent plea which may interrupt his argument;—he will pretend not to mention what he might have urged to good purpose;—he will caution his hearers against the various artifices and subterfuges which may be employed to deceive them;—he will sometimes appear to speak ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... had persuaded himself—he has no marked ability or attractions of any kind that I can discern—that his duty impelled him to watch Madame with exceeding closeness of attention. That his strong inclinations marched with his duty may be allowed him as a privilege; the plea of duty was not, I believe, merely an excuse. But what can one say in defence of Madame, one who has stored within her little copper-covered head enough brains to furnish a brigade, say, of the Women's Emergency Corps? She had perceived that ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... disappeared, they pronounced him a leper, and ordered that all intercourse with the building should be suspended. No explanation would convince them to the contrary, and his death confirmed them in their opinion. Availing himself of this opportunity, and under the plea that it was important to their safety, Vaalpeor removed the two orphan children in his charge to one of the country temples in the plain, and the idle mules of the strangers were employed to carry tents, ...
— Memoir of an Eventful Expedition in Central America • Pedro Velasquez
... back skairt. He said, jest as he was a carryin' Dorlesky's errents in, a long petition come from thousands and thousands of wimmen on this very subject. A plea for justice and mercy, sent in respectful, to the ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... in the Design of High Speed Steamships.—By D. P.—A plea for the experimental determination of the probable speed of ships, with examples of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 717, September 28, 1889 • Various
... mercy as well as good cheer; and many a poor fellow knew that, if he could but get her ear, his penance in the guard-house for some violation of the regulations, would be far less severe on account of her gentle and womanly plea. ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... they had been called on for a report about that riot and an explanation; if ever they had need to look sharp what they were doing, it was now. On the other hand, Callista and her brother had friends among the judges, as we have said, and their plea was at once obvious and reasonable. "If she persists, she persists, and nothing can be said; we don't wish to be disloyal, or careless of the emperor's commands. If she is obstinate, she must die; but she dies quite as usefully to us, with quite as much ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... cordiality that he displayed toward anybody or anything connected in the most remote degree with his wife. It was evidently with sincere regrets that he made his apologies after dinner, and left the house with a plea of business. ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... own room we saw pictures of Sumner, Prescott, and others of his American friends. This custom of showing houses, which prevails over Europe, is, I think, a thing which must conduce greatly to national improvement. A plea for the beautiful is constantly put in by them—a model held up before the community, whose influence cannot be too highly estimated. Before one of the choicest paintings stood the easel of some neighboring ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... as it may appear to people of no gratitude, my heart was set upon faring forth in search of the noble Sawyer, if only it could be reconciled with my duty here in England. That such a proceeding would avail but little, seemed now, alas! too manifest; but a plea of that kind generally means that we have no mind to do ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... he captures Pavia after a siege of eight months; and also puts an end to the kingdom of Lombardy. The papal temporalities are increased by Charlemagne. Forgery of the "Donation of Constantine" used as a plea to urge Charlemagne still more to aggrandize ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... up supper, quietly at cards with a large party of his friends. The man coolly remonstrated, that it was impossible to leave his game unfinished. The master candidly acknowledged the force of his plea; but insisted upon the man's going up stairs to lay the cloth for supper, whilst he took his cards, sat down, and ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... stay at Matching, and if the absence were not too long, this might be well explained to the assembled company. In the Duchess's estimation a Prime Minister would lose nothing by pleading the nature of his business as an excuse for such absence,—or by having such a plea made for him. Of course he must appear at last. But as to that she had no fear. His timidity, and his conscience also, would both be too potent to allow him to shirk the nuisance of Gatherum altogether. He would come, ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... relationship between husband and wife. It shows, too, the growth of a woman's soul, once she has been forced to stand on her own feet. Viewed from this point, the play might very well be classified as feministic. It would be easy, for one thing, to read into it a plea for a single moral standard. But its ultimate bearing goes far beyond such a narrow construction. Here as elsewhere, Schnitzler shows himself more sympathetic toward the female than toward the male ...
— The Lonely Way—Intermezzo—Countess Mizzie - Three Plays • Arthur Schnitzler
... called in. But he declined, on the plea of inexperience, diffidence in public, lack of curiosity, and I didn't know what all. Another man declined on account of a cold in the head; thought he ought to avoid exposure. Another could not jump well—never COULD jump well—did ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... homeward-bound Irishmen safely landed at Queenstown, and the others graduated in a much-needed schooling in the doctrine of the brotherhood of man; but Captain Williams, against Murphy's urgent and earnest plea for more meat on the forecastle menu, persisted in sticking to the original diet. The Albatross was a "full-and-plenty" ship—that is, one in which, with the supposed consent of the crew, the government scale was discarded in favor of one containing more vegetables and less meat. ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... followed the promptings of my own sagacity, to oppose the return of the Jesuits. It remains for me only to add that these arguments lost all their weight when set in the balance against the safety of my beloved master. To this plea the king himself for once condescended, and found those who were most strenuous to dissuade him the least able to refute it; since the more a man abhorred the Jesuits, the more ready he was to allow that the king's life could not be ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... Percival," explained the mother, putting in a plea for her rebels. "They are used to society and admiration. They don't take interest in gardens and oyster beds yet; they like variety and excitement. The country ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... by his rash conduct; and on private grounds, because from his error he sought to obtain his gratitude rather than his own glory. Camillus was now in the decline of life, and when prepared at the election to take the usual oath for the purpose of excusing himself on the plea of his health, he was opposed by the consent of the people: but his active mind was still vigorous within his ardent breast, and he enjoyed all his faculties entire, and now that he concerned himself but ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... "The ordinary plea when the rendering of disputed passages is not to our taste," says Jacques. "But I must go. By the by, the worthy Doctor came near seeing you in ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... faire. There were tears in her eyes when she made her confession. She was stirred by a very real and deep emotion. It had been years, she said, since the old recollections had come back to her, but she had been moved by my plea for service to home women and to the great mass ...
— The Log-Cabin Lady, An Anonymous Autobiography • Unknown
... magnificent passages which show the power and the harmony of our English speech, but they are marred by other passages of bitter raillery and invective. The most famous of all these works is the noble plea called Areopagitica: [Footnote: From the Areopagus or forum of Athens, the place of public appeal. This was the "Mars Hill" from which St. Paul addressed the Athenians, as recorded in the Book of Acts.] a Speech for the Liberty of ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... the letters there was a response to a plea for money and more money. "I send you all I can spare. Don't let the brats spend so much. They have been spoiled ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson
... have been amicable, for Fergus was crazy to go in and see Clement's little pump, which he declared 'would do it'- —an enigmatical phrase supposed to refer to the great peg-top- perpetual-motion invention. He was dragged away with difficulty on the plea of its being too late by Aunt Jane, who could not quite turn two unexpected children in on Mrs. Varley, and had to effect a cruel severance of Val and Kitty in ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in living force many an incident and circumstance heretofore strange and incomprehensible; but now only too plain and indicative. The whole of Thurston's manner the fatal day of the assassination—his abstraction, his anxious haste to get away on the plea of most urgent business in Baltimore—business that never was afterward heard of; his mysterious absence of the whole night from his grandfather's deathbed—provoking conjecture at the time, and unaccounted for to this day; his haggard and distracted ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... man who stands so grandly at head of an immense stream of liberating effort to write an immoral work? Surely the only enduring moral virtue which can be claimed is for that which moves to more power, beauty and delight in the future? The plea that the question of changing customs arises is not valid, for customs ratified by Aristophanes, by Rabelais, by Shakespeare, have no right to change. If they have changed, let us try immediately to return from our disgraceful refinements ...
— Lysistrata • Aristophanes
... house arose, reminding her father that he had at table the principal performer of the evening, by way of a caution, when three or four of us handed the ladies to the drawing-room door. Instead of returning to the table, I entered the room, and Bulstrode did the same, under the plea of its being necessary for him to drink no more, on account of ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... name"—Lanyard's smile was diffident, a plea for suspended judgment on his lack of inventiveness—"for a lame idea. I believe our only course is to let them believe they have been successful in every way, and so lull them into carelessness with a false sense ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... the knowledge and opportunities, thus gained, for warning and preserving others. There is much danger, in taking this course, that men will seek the excitement of the imagination, for the mere pleasure it affords, under the plea of preparing to serve the public, when this is neither the aim ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... at a ball three nights before; that the police had raised the tariff for sporting houses, and would collect seventy-five and a hundred a month protection money where the charge had been twenty-five and fifty—the plea was that the reformers, just elected and hoping for one term only, were compelling a larger fund from vice than the old steady year-in-and-year-out ruling crowd. "And they may raise us to fifteen a week," said Clara, "though I doubt it. They'll not ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... William, the son of the Earl of Normandy, and gave him the earldom; and the people of that land accepted him. This same William had before taken to wife the daughter of the Earl of Anjou; but they were afterwards divorced on the plea of consanguinity. This was all through the King Henry of England. Afterwards took he to wife the sister of the king's wife of France; and for this reason the king gave him the earldom of Flanders. This same year he (155) gave the abbacy of Peterborough ...
— The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle • Unknown
... Bishop Pearson, Bishop Porteus. I also read Leland's View of Deistical Writers, Leslie's Short and Easy Method with Deists, Faber's Difficulties of Infidelity, Fuller's Gospel its Own Witness, Butler's Analogy, Baxter's Unreasonableness of Infidelity, and his Evidences of Christianity, Simpson's Plea for Religion and the Sacred Writings, Ryan on the Beneficial Effects of Christianity, Cave on the Early Christians, the Debate between R. Owen and A. Campbell, Scotch Lectures, G. Campbell on Miracles, Ray's Wisdom of God in Creation, Constable's History of Converts from Infidelity, Newton on ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... combine the interests of heaven with the works of this world. She took her daughter to mass every day and compelled her to go to confession every week; but every afternoon she accompanied her in a visit to the amorous old man, the rage of whom frightened me when she refused him a kiss under the plea that she had performed her devotions in the morning, and that she could not reconcile herself to the idea of offending the God who was still ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... shaking like a silly girl. He pushed his chair back so that, unaware to her, his eyes could rest upon her face, and planned his approach. He would begin by speaking of Helen, of her courage, of her great loss, then of her supreme regret, at which point he would make his plea. But Jane would give him no help at all. Silent she sat looking into the fire, all the vivacity and brilliance of the past hour gone, and in its place a gentle, pensive sadness. The firelight fell on her face, so changed from what it had been ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... Naples or Florence. He knew so well how necessary such intervals of absence are to the preservation of love, to the defeat of that satiety which creeps over us with custom, that he had resolutely enforced it as a necessity, although always under the excuse of business—a plea that Lucilla could understand and not resist; for the word business seemed to her like destiny—a call that, however odious, we cannot disobey. At first, indeed, she was disconsolate at the absence only of two days; ...
— Godolphin, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... position in which he had contributed a great deal to the efficiency of that Department, in order to take a more tangible part in the war. After raising among his friends and the cowboys of the West a regiment of "Rough Riders," he declined its command on plea of military inexperience. Roosevelt made one of those happy choices which are a mark of his administrative ability in selecting as colonel Leonard Wood, an army surgeon whose quality he knew through common ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish
... or had not the power of averting a hostile step against Neuchatel, you may rely upon my readiness at all times to put my good offices at your disposal. Should a conference upon Swiss affairs still become necessary, I conceive that the only plea upon which the great Powers could meet in conference would be their having guaranteed the independence and neutrality of Switzerland, and by implication the Federal Compact amongst the Cantons. This has not been the case with regard to ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... called it—the only thing, besides the little star, that he had ever given her. She called her maid, and announced that in the future she would never be at home to a certain caller; then she reached for the telephone beside her bed and cancelled all her engagements for the next few days, on the plea of not feeling well, which was perfectly true; and then she called up Western Union, and dispatched a long telegram, after which she indulged in a comforting and ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... rather than touch a penny of that man's money, at least whilst his state of mind remained what it then was, I would perish of starvation in a ditch. Then bewildered, stunned, and utterly crushed in spirit, I hastily excused myself to Courtenay upon the plea of having received distressing news from England, and, obeying the same impulse which impels a wounded animal to rush away and hide itself and its suffering in the deepest solitudes, I turned my back upon Kingston, with its busy bustling ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... Russian Embassy occasionally had; and he had immediately applied for a revision of the settlement of the Conti affairs, on the ground of large errors in the estimates of the property, supporting his application with the plea that many of the proceedings in the matter had been technically faulty because certain documents should have been signed by Sabina, as a minor interested in the estate, and whose consent was necessary. He ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... come. In her present exile from good society, and distance from everything that had been wont to interest her, a letter from one belonging to the set where her heart lived, written with affection, and some degree of elegance, was thoroughly acceptable. The usual plea of increasing engagements was made in excuse for not having written to her earlier; "And now that I have begun," she continued, "my letter will not be worth your reading, for there will be no little offering of love at the ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... savage spirit appeared among a few poor British cadets, or piney wood tories, it would not have been so lamentable. Their ignorance of those divine truths, which exalt the soul above such hellish passions, would have furnished some plea for them. But, that a British general, and that general a nobleman! a lord! with an archbishop for his brother, and hot-pressed bibles, and morocco prayer books, and all such excellent helps, to teach him that "God is love", and "mercy his delight"; that such ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... attain inward freedom, serenity, happiness, contentment. Style takes your fancy, arguing takes your fancy, and you forget your home and want to make your abode with them and to stay with them, on the plea that they are taking. Who denies that they are taking? but as places of passage, as inns. And when I say this, you suppose me to be attacking the care for style, the care for argument. I am not; ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... retain in their own hands the whole of the trade of this rich country, are making a practice of seizing every Englishman upon whom they can lay hands, and delivering him over to your so-called Holy Inquisition in order that, while salving your own consciences with the plea of religious zeal, my countrymen may be subjected to fiendish tortures, and so be discouraged from attempting to secure a share of the immeasurable wealth which you enjoy. Now the time has come when ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... she had been acquainted at St. Quentin. On the evening appointed for their departure,—while Mr. Linley, his eldest son, and Miss Maria Linley, were engaged at a concert, from which the young Cecilia herself had been, on a plea of illness, excused,—she was conveyed by Sheridan in a sedan-chair from her father's house in the Crescent, to a post-chaise which waited for them on the London road, and in which she found a woman whom her lover had hired, as a sort of protecting ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... prejudice this!' methinks I hear you mutter): great part are of dutch, or german descent. The close iron stoves they have introduced among you are terrible enemies to beauty. Why you so obstinately persist in a custom so prejudicial to health, I cannot imagine. Your plea, that the coldness of the climate makes them indispensable, I can-not admit of; you know, that we are here three degrees to the north of you, and that the present is the coldest winter since the ...
— Travels in the United States of America • William Priest
... physician, as such be concerned or think himself concerned. He is not a public hangman executing a sentence of a criminal court; nor is he acting as a soldier proceeding by public authority against a public foe. As to the plea of self-defence, it must be correctly understood, lest he usurp a power which neither human nor divine law has conferred ...
— Moral Principles and Medical Practice - The Basis of Medical Jurisprudence • Charles Coppens
... as heretical, and threatened their author with excommunication. Wickliffe could now derive no support from the duke of Lancaster, and being cited to appear before his former adversary, William Courteney, now made archbishop of Canterbury, he sheltered himself under the plea, that, as a member of the university, he was exempt from episcopal jurisdiction. This plea was admitted, as the university were determined ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... language, saying they were looking for an East India ship. When asked if they would attack a single one, they answered evasively, while continuing to boast of the things they were going to do. These early proceedings of Kidd effectually dispose of the plea that his intentions were at first honest, and that he only yielded to the coercion of his crew in taking to piracy, after reaching the Indian seas. The truth is that Kidd was resolved on piracy from the first, and had little ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph
... you. Unfortunately, of this statement I had no proof but your own word. I made, however, so far an impression in your favour, and, it may be, against the traitor, that your property was not confiscated to the State, nor handed over, upon the plea of your ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... stanch friend of the Pilgrims, although not a "Separatist," and intimately connected with the upbuilding of New England. His record was a broad and noble one. Goodwin says: "Haven thinks White was that Dorchester clergyman reputed to be the author of the Planters' Plea." Probably, but not certainly, William White of the Pilgrims was ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... king sent to demand that those who had received decrees of emancipation should return them. They did so; and in this way a considerable number of the decrees were given up. The king tore them to pieces on the field, upon the plea that they were forfeited by the men's having continued in rebellion ...
— Richard II - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... indeed, that Sargon, instead of cloaking his usurpation under some decent plea of right, took a pride in boldly avowing it. The name Sargon has been supposed to be one which he adopted as his royal title at the time of his establishment upon the throne, intending by the adoption to make it generally known that he had acquired the ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... leading characters. But her sometime-friend Richard Steele could. Having laughed in The Tender Husband (1705) at a girl whose judgment of life was seriously—or, rather, comically—warped by her reading of heroic romances, Steele made a positive plea in Tatler No. 172 for histories of "such adventures as befall persons not exalted above the common level." Books of this sort, still rare in 1710, would be of great value to "the ordinary race of men." The anonymous preface to The Adventures of ...
— Prefaces to Fiction • Various
... says she, 'there's a letter—can it be for you, think ye?' It was directed, 'David Stuart, Esquire (nae less), for——, by Coldstream.' So I opened the seal, and, to my surprise and astonishment, I found it was frae the man o' business I had employed in London, stating that I had won the law-plea, and that I might get the money whene'er I wanted it. I sent for the siller the very next post. Now, ye see, I was sick and tired o' being a bachelor. I had lang wished to be settled in a comfortable matrimonial ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... reply: The plea is as profligate as the act was tyrannical. It is the jesuitical doctrine, that the end sanctifies the means. It is a confession of sin, but the denial of any guilt in its perpetration. It is at war with the government of God, and subversive of the ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... Dance Costume Balls Subscription Dances The Ballroom Music at the Dance Dance Programs Dinner Dances Dressing Rooms The Dance When the Lady is Asked to Dance "Cutting In" Dancing Positions When the Guest Does Not Dance Public Dances A Plea for Dancing The Charm of Dress in Dancing At the Afternoon Dance Gentlemen at the Dance Dress for the Ball Dress of the Debutante Wraps at the Ball Ball Dress for Men For the ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler
... poor to leave it. The boundary line between Wyker and Jacobs was the same ugly little creek that Doctor Carey had turned his course to avoid on that winter day when he had seen Virginia Aydelot's distress signal and heard her singing a plaintive plea for help. ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... that she was being dismissed, and she groped about wildly for a new plea. Her eye caught a framed picture of the old monastery of Amalfi ...
— When Patty Went to College • Jean Webster
... the plea of duties at home; and Philothea, supposing it might be painful to meet her unfortunate lover in the presence of ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... "If a plea shall arise between a burgess and a merchant it must be determined before the third flowing of the sea"—that is, within three tides; a wise provision! For thus the merchant would not miss the last tide of the day after the quarrel. How living it is, a phrase ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... blame. Lieutenant Pennington should not have struck the blow: no gentleman will tamely submit to the indignity of a blow. As for you, Captain Conway, I am surprised that you, one of my officers, should insult a lady. If this offence is ever repeated, intoxication will be no plea in its extenuation. Heretofore it has been our proud boast that where Morgan's men are there any lady, be she for North or South, is as safe as in her own home. Let us see that it ...
— Raiding with Morgan • Byron A. Dunn
... Virgie sent to Dr. Knox for his bill, paid it, dismissed her nurse, notwithstanding her urgent plea to be retained even at reduced wages, and then she quietly disappeared from the place, leaving no trace behind her to point to her destination or future plans, and, after the gossip consequent upon such a choice bit of scandal ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... nations or by the laws of the United States and existing treaty stipulations between the Government of Oldenburg and the United States, and the said Janssen having refused to appear in the supreme court of the State of New York to answer in a suit there pending against himself and others on the plea that he is a consular officer of Oldenburg, thus seeking to use his official position to defeat the ends of justice, it is deemed advisable that the said Gerhard Janssen should no longer be permitted to continue in the exercise of said ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... not say merely "the child's bread", but "the children's bread", where it is no less impossible to resolve the phrase into "the children his bread"{185}. Despite of these protests the error held its ground. This much indeed of a plea it could make for itself, that such an actual employment of 'his' had found its way into the language, as early as the fourteenth century, and had been in occasional, though rare use, from that time downward{186}. Yet this, which ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... prospect of her leaving him in anger, and closing her doors henceforward against him. "I know how contemptible I must seem in your eyes. I read it in your countenance; I have no excuse to offer, except the plea that my love for you overleapt the bounds ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... Fyodor Ryezunov's company did not plough over the ground twice before sowing, as had been agreed, justifying themselves on the plea that the time was too short. It is true that the peasants of the same company, though they had agreed to work the land on new conditions, always spoke of the land, not as held in partnership, but as rented for half the crop, and more than once the peasants and Ryezunov himself said to Levin, ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... but make way for a succession of suitors, who, in low and pleading tones, besought the honor of her hand in the waltz that was about to begin. But to each of these in turn she excused herself, upon the plea that she never waltzed. ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... delight of Marcel as he derided the girl's plea left a great warmth of pleasure flooding ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... first money he had ever earned. Jonathan W. Gordon, one of the leaders of the Indianapolis bar, called young Harrison to his assistance in the prosecution of a criminal tried for burglary, and intrusted to him the plea for the State. He had taken ample notes of the evidence, but the case was closed at night, and the court-house being dimly lighted by tallow candles, he was unable to read them when he arose to address the court and jury, paying ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... earth will be stained red from veins of young and old. That sweet and sounding name of patria becomes an illusion and a curse; linked with the pretentious modernism, civilization, it serves as plea to the latter-day barbarian, ravening and reckless under his civil garb. How can one greatly wish for the consolidation and prosperity of Italy, knowing that national vigour tends more and more to international ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing
... his opportunity. Lurking behind a screen in the Court of Common Pleas, the painter sought and found an opportunity for making a sketch of Wilkes. While Justice Pratt, with what Wilkes called "the eloquence and courage of old Rome," was laying down the law upon the prisoner's plea preparatory to setting him at liberty, Hogarth's busy pencil was engaged upon the first sketch for that caricature which has helped to make Wilkes's features famous and infamous throughout the world. The print was promptly ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... and presently turned homewards, on the plea that she must not be longer absent from ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... he betrays a coarseness of taste and an insensibility to foreign refinements, he thanks Heaven for his ignorance—he is a plain John Bull and has no relish for frippery and knick-knacks. His very proneness to be gulled by strangers and to pay extravagantly for absurdities is excused under the plea of munificence, for John is ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... that, when my day is done, And I see its setting sun, Shorn and beamless, cold and dim, Sink beneath the horizon's rim,— When this ball of rock and clay Crumbles from my feet away, And the solid shores of sense Melt into the vague immense, Father! I may come to Thee Even with the beggar's plea, As the poorest of Thy poor, With my needs, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... inference from the matter is, that in the closing years of the fourteenth century judges were permitted to give opinions for money to their private clients, although they were forbidden to take gold or silver from any person having "plea or process ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... Donald, as the two boats swung apart, and there was some justification for this plea, as the Speedaway was also ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton
... of her writings. It is suggested, naturally enough, by her denunciations of the corruptions of the Church, denunciations as sweeping and penetrating as were ever uttered by Luther; by her amazingly sharp and outspoken criticism of the popes; and by her constant plea for reform. The pungency of all these elements in her writings is felt by the most casual reader. But it must never be forgotten that honest and vigorous criticism of the Church Visible is, in the mind of the Catholic philosopher, entirely consistent with loyalty to the sacerdotal ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... confidence. It is because such appointments are made that, in a great measure, the troubles with these border Indians arise; and many is the section of country in western America, where apparently the reward for taking a white man's scalp is a blazing red or a sky blue blanket, which is paid under the plea of keeping the peace. This, too, when efficient means and decided measures are the only ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... Aunt Jen was well acquainted, and had to be thankful that it was carried no further, as it often was in the case of any criticisms as to the management of children. In this case Aunt Jen was usually invited not to meddle, on the forcible plea that what a score of old maids knew about rearing a family could be put into a nutshell without risk ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... give you the plainly non-natural. And if this were all, and that these mental hallucinations were discoverable only in the treatment of subjects out of nature, or transcending it, the judgment might with some plea be pardoned if it ran riot, and a little wantonized: but even in the describing of real and every day life, that which is before their eyes, one of these lesser wits shall more deviate from nature—show more of that inconsequence, which has a natural alliance with frenzy,—than a great genius ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... a rude square, traced out in bits of red brick alternating with fragments of broken china; the whole bounded by a little bank of dust. The water-man from the well-curb put in a plea for the small architect, saying that it was only the play of a baby and did not much disfigure ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... been Tish's intention, as I learned later, merely to take the young woman for a country ride, and there to strive to instill into her the weakness and folly of being married by Mr. Culver as an exemption plea. But as we had been making forty-five miles an hour by the speedometer, there had ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... danger in departing from our simple plea of returning to the Bible alone lay in our being moved by clerical and sectarian influences. To the young in particular in the present day that can hardly be called our greatest danger. The influences at work to produce doubt in regard ...
— A Trip Abroad • Don Carlos Janes
... two o'clock closing law. Peter enjoyed dancing, but he did not as a usual thing enjoy bankers' wives. He was deliberating on the possibility of excusing himself gracefully after the theater, on the plea of having some work to do, and finally decided that his sister's feelings would be hurt if she realized he was trying to escape the climax of the hospitality she ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... fabled "long ago," our modern hero was a plain, business-like man. He thought a great deal of the daughter, but for her worn-out old hulk of a father he didn't care a button. Married he was determined to be, nolens volens; and that was the long and the short of it. To a piteous plea to remain and enjoy the old man's wealth, he turned the deafest of ears. Business required his presence at home; where business commanded, he obeyed; and that was the long and the short of that. He didn't ...
— Trifles for the Christmas Holidays • H. S. Armstrong
... is the chief end of life. It is the militarist who is the true idealist because he assumes that humanity can only achieve its mission through struggle and strife, through sacrifice and heroism. It is true that Bernhardi ignores the greatest of Prussian philosophers, whose immortal plea in favour of perpetual peace is dismissed as the work of his dotage. But if he dismisses Kant, he adduces instead a formidable array of thinkers and poets in support of his militarist thesis; Schiller and Goethe, Hegel ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... shuddered one of the under-secretaries. "I remember the case. He killed his nephew and defended himself on the plea that the youth was a degenerate, as ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... with a listless smile of irony; "but I am afraid twelve good men in a box—the jury, you know—would not be so incredulous. May I ask why you refuse to accept my plea of ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... good offices of every kind were bought and sold. Robert Grislet paid twenty marks of silver, that the king would help him against the Earl of Mortaigne, in a certain plea [z]: Robert de Cundet gave thirty marks of silver, that the king would bring him to an accord with the Bishop of Lincoln [a]: Ralph de Breckham gave a hawk, that the king would protect him [b]; and this is a very frequent reason for payments: John, son of Ordgar, gave a Norway ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... customer was manifestly to be included. When the railroad managers have been asked why they cut their published rates and evaded the laws, they have always contended that they were forced to do so; and whatever may be thought of the plea, it cannot be lightly set aside. As we have seen, the trunk lines leading from Chicago to the coast were the result of the consolidation of local roads. After the consolidations had taken place, these companies began to compete fiercely for through freight, and ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... set his thatch on fire with the result that a whole village is burnt down. He is held responsible for the loss but when brought before the judge argues that the flame of his lamp was not the same as the flame that burnt down the village. Will such a plea be allowed? Certainly not. Or to take another metaphor. Suppose a man were to choose a young girl in marriage and after making a contract with her parents were to go away, waiting for her to grow up. Meanwhile another man comes and marries her. If the two men appeal to the King and the ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... along, two or three boys begged of us, and pointed to their rags as a plea for their begging. "They'll not do," said he; "the better ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... the conqueror." Gushtasp received the news with consternation, and prepared with the utmost expedition for his departure. He invited Rustem to accompany him, but the champion excused himself at the time, and afterwards declined altogether on the plea of sickness. Before he had yet arrived at Balkh, Kahram hearing of his approach, went out to meet him with his whole army, and was joined on the same day by Arjasp and ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... "Rogue, thy plea augments the offence. A crime committed on an extraordinary occasion becomes an extraordinary crime, and requires an extraordinary punishment, which I intend to see inflicted, forthwith. You have insulted the authorities, and that is the unpardonable ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... regulation of this interval, and thus practically on the person or section ruling the senate at the moment. The jury-commissions were left in existence, but limits were put to the right of counter-plea, and—what was perhaps still more important—the liberty of speech in the courts was done away; for both the number of the advocates and the time of speaking apportioned to each were restricted by fixing a maximum, and the bad habit which ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... you shame me!" she cried. "What kind of a heart have I that it fails to respond to such a plea? Have I been overworked and starved so long there is no feeling in me? I don't understand why I don't take you in my arms and kiss you a hundred times, but you see I don't. It doesn't seem as ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... period of Gaika's concessions, up to the year 1829, he with his tribe dwelt upon the Kat river, following their pastoral life in peace, and cultivating their corn-fields. Suddenly they were ejected from their lands by the Kat river, on the plea that Gaika had ceded these lands to the colony. Macomo retired, almost without a murmur, to a district farther inland, leaving the very grain growing upon his fields. He took up a new position on the banks of the river Chunice, and here he and his tribe dwelt until ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... death did not at first affect Tycho's position, for the new king, Christian, was only eleven years old, and for some years the council of regents included two of his supporters. After their deaths, however, his emoluments began to be cut down on the plea of economy, and as he took very little trouble to carry out any other than scientific duties it was easy enough for his enemies to find fault. One after another source of income was cut off, but he persevered with his ...
— Kepler • Walter W. Bryant
... the fondness shown by some unbidden guests for our food, of the trickery of the mouse, or of the cricket's habit of tumbling into the milk, while taking unlawful sips. But a plea can be found even for the most despised of creatures. Cheese is a dainty to the pilfering mouse, but the eggs of the cockroach are a still daintier morsel. The cricket is a scavenger, and besides cheering us by his sprightly song, rids the floor of tiny atoms of insanitary dust, and the house-spider ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... prepared for a thorough canvass of my district. The Republicans were everywhere divided on the question, while the current of opinion was strongly against the introduction of the issue as premature. The politicians all opposed it on the plea that it would divide the Republicans and restore the Democrats to power, and that we must wait for the growth of a public opinion that would justify its agitation. Governor Morton opposed the policy with inexpressible bitterness, declaring, with an oath, that "negro suffrage ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... respectable inhabitants of Manchester and the surrounding country, and on the Friday Mr. Edward Grundy and a friend from Bury called, and informed me that there was a report in circulation in Manchester, that it was the intention of the Magistrates to have me apprehended, under the plea of having committed some political offence, in order to interrupt the proceedings of the meeting; but these gentlemen assured me that they would become my bail to any amount, if it should be so. However, this did not satisfy me, and on Saturday, morning ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... appellee on the merits was a bar to an indictment; and, on the other hand, when an appeal was fairly started, although the appellor might fail to prosecute, or might be defeated by plea, the cause might still be proceeded with on ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... God and man, So, Death, our tongue acclaims thee: yet wast thou Hailed of old Rome as Romans hail thee now, Goddess and woman. Since the sands first ran That told when first man's life and death began, The shadows round thy blind ambiguous brow Have mocked the votive plea, the pleading vow That sought thee sorrowing, ...
— Astrophel and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne, Vol. VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... came to turn the visitors away on the plea that Paul had talked quite enough. Debby flared up, but became meek when Sylvia lifted a reproving finger. Then Paul asked Debby to seek his Bloomsbury lodgings and bring to him any letters that might be waiting for him. ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... had been more perceptible; for with all her foolishness Dolly had a kind heart, and a keen sense of right, and wrong, and justice than her husband. She had opposed him stoutly when he raised his own salary from $4,000 to $6,000 a year, on the plea that his services were worth it, and that two thousand more or less was nothing to Arthur; and when he was a candidate for the Legislature she had protested loudly against his inviting to the house and giving ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... not well have been a better plea against his own statement. Art is often national—but not when art is at its best. Art is an emotional result—and emotion is a thing the Jews know something about. Meyerbeer was a Jew, and the most helpful friend Richard Wagner ever had, yet Wagner was so little of a Jew that he did ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... prisoners being asked to plead to the indictments which had been prepared against them, Mr. Kirkman, a prominent attorney of Geneva, who had been retained to defend the unfortunate young men, arose, and in impressive tones entered a plea of guilty. With the keen perceptions of a true lawyer, he felt that the proofs were too strong to be overcome, and that to attempt to set up any technical defense would only result in greater hardships to his clients. He, however, ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... of the other men belonging to my old ship, including Accra Prout, whom the colonel wished to accompany us to Venezuela, the mulatto refusing on the plea that, though he should always love his "old massa," he could not go with him ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... Hunter no sooner made himself acquainted with the mischievous extent to which this conduct was carried, than he published an order, in which he prohibited every person in trade from "crediting the servants of the crown, under the plea of their being at liberty to imprison their persons; if such credit was given, it was to be understood as being done at the risk of the creditor, on the good faith he entertained of the integrity of the persons he so entrusted, but that the public ...
— The Present Picture of New South Wales (1811) • David Dickinson Mann
... "But the plea is prevalent," he said, "that any interference by the free States, however benevolent or cautious it might be, would only irritate and inflame the jealousies of the South, and retard the cause of emancipation. If any man believes that slavery can be abolished without a struggle with ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... stichomuthic dialogue, who admits the deed, and pleads justification that she slew his father.—Cho. rejoin she has been paid by death, Orestes still lives. Why, then, Orestes enquires, did they not pursue her while alive? Chorus rest on plea that hers was not kindred blood. On this Orestes joins issue and appeals to Apollo. He answers: Though the Jurors are on oath, yet Zeus gave the oracle, and he is mightier than an oath.—Cho. What, ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton
... written pages, ending with another plea to me to see "poor George" and help him, and begging me to "burn this letter, because I should be so ashamed to have ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Her plea had its effect, and money was subscribed for beginning work. Other clubs responded to the call for help and contributed both furnishings and funds. And what was called the Woman's Model Lodging House was ...
— Stevenson Memorial Cook Book • Various
... is ridiculous," were her words, and yet she did not call for assistance. Jarvis realized that he had at least won a foothold for his plea. And he had not given up ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... thought comes," she writes in "Reciprocity," "we owe that thought to the world. A great deal of this interment of our best thought-life is justified to ourselves by the plea that such thoughts are too sacred for utterance: a wretched sophistry, a miserable excuse for what is really our fear of criticism." There is nothing trivial or false about the critical and ethical views which Miss Cleveland gives bravely, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... be, but it's none of my business," said young Mills, loftily, waiving Dobbs's plea aside as a mere trivial matter. "I want some breakfast. What have you at all fit for a christian to eat? I see nothing here, nothing ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... place for sexual enlightenment regarding the sexual life of human beings, at least in the case of the older pupils. There is no adequate reason for objecting to boys about to leave school being warned by a schoolmaster or a physician about the dangers of venereal disease; and at the same time a plea may be put forward against the view that it is incumbent upon every young man to prove his strength by the maximum indulgence in ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... fact, he had quite forgotten that the arrangement existed. When he had first heard of it he had protested vigorously, but had been overborne by O'Hara with the plea that they owed their prisoner something for having come near to poisoning him, and Stewart did not care to have any further attention called to that matter; it had already put a severe strain upon the relations at ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... others who had been arrested, had brought actions for false imprisonment, which came to be tried in his court; and they obtained such heavy damages that the officials who had been mulcted applied for new trials, on the plea of their being excessive. But the Chief-justice refused the applications, and upheld the verdict, on the ground that the juries, in their assessment of damages, had been "influenced by a righteous indignation at the conduct of those who sought to exercise arbitrary ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge |
